Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The antics of Hillbilly Clinton, Sarah Palin and the Donald are enough to make people laugh or puke on a national scale. Everyone chooses to overlook the asininity of our local politicians only because they haven't made the national news media. Yet.
In the last twenty four hours in Rochester, three separate incidents have revealed how badly broken our political and judicial systems are.
Today, US District Court Judge Frank Geraci suspended prostitute patronizing attorney John Parrinello from practicing law in federal court for 180 days.
It was not because of Parrinello's taste for gratuitous sex, but because of his asinine behavior in a court room last August. He was disruptive and heckled the court.
Parrinello has been pulling that sort of shit for years. What took the court system so long to chastise him? Why now? And it's such a mild rap on the knuckles, too.
Also today, Robert Wiesner pleaded guilty to committing a felony antitrust crime in connection with a major public corruption scandal. Of course there was a deal.
Wiesner paid a total of $8,000 and gets to stay out of jail for pleading guilty. He has to keep his nose clean for three years in return for the conditional discharge. He did not agree to cooperate and testify at the trials of his fellow crooks.
Wiesner got off cheap.
Which just goes to show you that there is one set of laws and sentences for the rich and another one for the rest of us.
Last but not least, Rochester's Board of Ethics ruled last night that it would not be unethical for the city to hire Bill Johnson's firm to study a disastrous program that he helped to create when he was mayor. Going back to the source of the problem to find a cure.
Last week, City Council approved the hire seven to two. The two holdouts, Conklin and McFadden, wanted the Board of Ethics to rule on it. The Board is appointed by City Council, and knows which side its bread is buttered on. It usually bases its conclusions on what the City Council and the mayor want. Conklin and McFadden know that, too.
I guess the mayor doesn't trust her Commissioners of Neighborhood and Business Development and Innovation to conduct the study. Why not? What does she trust them with?
How come Saturday Night Live doesn't come up with some skits featuring Rochester? The mayor is forever attempting to thrust herself into the national arena.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Rochester's eccentric attorney John Parrinello is seeking a bench trial regarding his arrest for patronizing a prostitute at a Gates motel last August.
That crime is a misdemeanor.
According to Rochester's liberal newsrag, the D&C, Parrinello plans to sue the Town of Gates, claiming he suffered "negligent infliction of mental distress," slander and violation of his Constitutional rights. He's also claiming false arrest and malicious prosecution.
Parrinello's attorney, David Rothenberg, wants an expedited bench trial because of his client's "health issues." The impending jury trial is also "causing stress for Parrinello's family and having an adverse impact on his law practice."
Really?
It is extremely difficult to embarrass the Parrinellos. John's decades of madcap behavior hasn't unduly troubled them before. Unless he really has gone over the edge this time, and become mad as a hatter.
A bench trial would eliminate the need to seat a jury of John's peers. It would take a very long time to dig up twelve prostitute patronizing attorneys.
Or maybe not.
There's no word about what the whore with whom John was caught thinks about it all.
That, too, is odd. The news media usually has a field day interviewing whores caught with prominent individuals.
It sells newspapers.
I have only one question to ask the lady. Was John wearing boxers or briefs around his ankles?

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Interim school superintendent Dan Lowengard resigned yesterday.
He had a stroke last week after being on the job for only four days. He will be returning to his home in Syracuse to recuperate.
Fortunately, the City of Rochester won't be stuck with Lowengard's bills or paying him off.
Linda Cimusz, who Lowengard hired as chief of staff during his four days on the job, will replace him as interim school superintendent. She was approved unanimously by the cretins who make up Rochester's school board.
That's three superintendents in less than three weeks.
That Cimusz has the confidence of Lowengard is unimportant, since his tenure as school superintendent had the brevity of the lifespan of a fruit fly.
Rochester's liberal newsrag, the D&C, states that Cimusz said she intends to follow through on the vision that Lowengard laid out, whatever the Hell that is supposed to mean.
Nobody in Rochester knew what Lowengard's visions or hallucinations were.
Cimusz, a stranger to Rochester, isn't interested in any long term appointment to oversee the school district.
Given the shitty state of Rochester's public schools, that's probably the wisest decision Cimusz will make.
It will also be a profitable one: $30,000 per month for six months.
Of course, we will still be paying off Vargas for the unexpired portion of his contract.
In the meantime, the cretins who comprise Rochester's school board will be searching for a permanent superintendent of schools. Someone who they can control and heap the blame on for all of their failures. Someone who can talk big, smile for the cameras, collect his or her salary and ultimately depart, leaving the city's public schools in exactly the same shitty state it is now.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Remember big ol' Bill Johnson, Rochester's first black mayor?
He's back.
Mayor Lovely Warren has decided to hire his consulting firm to study the city's policy for dealing with nuisance properties.
Rochester's liberal newsrag, the D&C, states that Johnson is familiar with the system, as his administration set it up.
Like everything else about the Johnson administration, that, too, has failed. It could not have been otherwise.
Every project that bore his stamp was a dismal failure. His twelve years in office marked the triumph of political correctness and the downward spiral of Rochester's fortunes into the shithole it has become.
While those failures cost the city dearly, Johnson profited quite nicely during his time as mayor. He became a millionaire.
Politics does have its rewards.
He attempted to regain the mayor's office during the 2011 special election, as if he hadn't milked the city enough between 1994 and 2005.
Oddly enough, then city council president Warren was opposed to his candidacy. She had her sights set on that office in the 2013 election, and didn't want Johnson spoiling her game.
They must have smoked a peace pipe, or something, since then. Johnson was on her transition team when she won the 2013 election. Now she wishes to enrich him further.
Hiring Johnson would require the consent of Rochester's city council.
The D&C states that Carolee Conklin, the only man on the council, is troubled by the propriety of the appointment.
The mayor and the ex mayor, of course, are pooh-poohing Conklin's concerns.
Propriety never bothered either Johnson or Warren before. It's too late to imagine that it will now.
The real question is why hire someone to study the failure of a system that was instituted by that same person in the first place?
But it's really very kind of Mayor Warren to allow ex mayor Johnson another crack at gorging at the public trough. It won't cost her a penny.

Monday, January 11, 2016

It has been only eleven days since 2016 began, which began with a terrorist threat on Rochester's east side.
There have plenty of shootings since then, most recently on Evergreen Street last night.
Today, firemen responding to a fire at 193-195 Leighton Street found four bodies at the scene. That, too, is on the east side.
The victims didn't die as a result of smoke inhalation or the fire. They were murdered. The fire was set to cover up the murders, only the perps didn't count on the Fire Department being as quick and efficient as they were.
It is now in the hands of the Rochester Police Department's homicide squad. And the Monroe County medical examiner, who will have to determine the time of death. The heat of the fire will probably interfere with the accuracy of that analysis.
What will not have to be determined is the cause of death: three of the victims were dispatched execution style with gun shots to the head; the throat of the fourth victim was cut.
Rochester has become THE place for multiple or mass murder.
I sincerely doubt that this latest multiple murder was caused by foreign terrorists. Just like last year's multiple murders, this was the result of our own, home grown, domestic lunatics.

Friday, January 8, 2016

That's right.
Daniel Lowengard from Syracuse, who is filling the unfulfilled portion of not-so dearly departed Bolgen Vargas' contract, fainted last night while meeting with teachers.
As a result of his "faint," he is in guarded condition at Strong Memorial Hospital.
Lowengard started working for the Rochester City School District on January 1. Which means he really began his job on January 4.
Four days into his six month position, which will pay him $180,000, he keeled over.
Perhaps he finally realized what he had gotten into: ever so briefly overseeing the worst school district in the state and one of the worst in the nation, while the school board hunts for a permanent superintendent of schools. One they can more easily manipulate than they could Vargas.
The D&C quotes a release from the school board as saying "We are all optimistic that Mr. Lowengard will be back to work very soon."
For how long? In the dismal parade of superintendents the RCSD has had in the last twenty years, he could easily become the one with the briefest tenure in the position.
And if he doesn't come back, how much will we have to pay him or his estate off?